26 November 2006

looking into the future

ah... the future.

so promising and full of mystery. but is it really? at least the near future doesn't promise very much. and it is not much of a mystery, that's for damn sure. i know what i'll be doing for quite some time: second-guessing myself and wondering what the hell i'm gonna do with the rest of this life.

i can look forward to the consummation of all things. and that does actually give me a great deal of hope. it really will be nice to be done. but how can i spend the hours, the weeks, the months, the years, that might still exist between now and then?

i suppose this all may smack of morbidity and depressing ideas, but is it too much to say, "i don't see much promise in this life, can't we move on to the next already?"

you know, i do believe that we can have life to the full, but i wonder increasingly if that life was meant to be had here. we live, breathe, eat, love, hate, shit, help, work, taste, etc, etc... most of what happens here sucks. we get glimpses of something fresh, glorious, and exciting that points to something far off in what is ominously called the future (something that is always ahead of us, but never here), but they fade away into the muck that accounts for the rest of our lives.

i grant to my contrarians that i have little room to complain. i work, make enough money to pay my bills and have a little extra, live more comfortably than many others, and have a considerable number of people who care for me. i don't live in poverty or squalor. i'm not hungry or cold. but these things don't rob me of the fact that i'm unhappy.

as stated above, we get glimpses of that happiness: in a friendship, a fun evening, a glorious sunset, a word of scripture spoken to the heart, a good joke... but i am coming to the belief that my great happiness still rests in the unseen future. the end of this life, the beginning of a new one.

perhaps i am impatient. or in a disgruntled mood. or lonely. but the promise of the future lingers on the fringes of my mind. i want heaven. i want to grasp that which my hope longs for. i want to be rid of pain, and sorrow, and doubt, and unhappiness. i want to see the source and object of my affection. i can feel it, almost barely sometimes, but the hope i have for the distant future has been secured in my heart and i don't want to wait.

i am sure that in all of this there is something shockingly unbiblical, but it's how i feel right now.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Me too.

Michaela

Na said...

wow. im astonished and so thankful you told us of your blog!

well said.

Anonymous said...

"shockingly unbiblical"...I would disagree. The scriptures paint a very visceral and rugged picture of man in his expressions and longings. Muddled through the words of the psalmists are the things that the Spirit can only interpret to be echoes and rythms of His own work in a soul.

miguel said...

I was thinking earlier today after appreciating your blog that my comment could easily give a negative and impersonal impression. At least to me it would. I apologize for this.
What I wrote was actually an affirmation towards the realness of your expressions. That was my intention.
I hope you have not recieved any offense in the impersonalness of my words and if you have been please again except my apologies.
Keep it up.

Shalom